Spaces in New Homes
October Special Study for Housing Economics
By Paul Emrath, Ph.D.
A question frequently asked about new homes is how finished floor space is
distributed in them. The standard source for data on characteristics of new homes,
the Census Bureau’s Survey of Construction (SOC), doesn’t go very far toward
answering the question. As recently reported in NAHB’s Special Study for August,
SOC data can be used to show that the median size of a home started in 2012 was
2,315 square feet, with, on average, 2.56 bathrooms, and 3.38 bedrooms.
But these standard data don’t answer questions about how large the rooms are, or
how much of the square footage is allocated to spaces like bedrooms, baths, a
living room, etc. in the typical new home. To collect this type of information, NAHB
recently surveyed its single-family builder members. The average percent
distribution of finished space in the typical new home built by NAHB’s members is
illustrated in Figure 1.
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The following sections discuss each type of space in more detail, provide square
footages, and breakdown the results for homes in different size ranges.
Types of Spaces
The survey on spaces in new homes took the form of special questions appended to
the monthly survey that underpins the NAHB/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index in
June of 2013. For reference, the questionnaire is available at the end of this report.
This article is based on information from 204 single-family builders who provided
relatively complete answers to these questions.
As the questionnaire shows, the survey asked single-family home builders about
space allocated to ten different types of rooms—plus a great room that could be a
combination of several types of spaces, and provided a line to write in and describe
any other areas. A separate question covered the space devoted to walk-in pantries
and closets.
The survey attempted neither to define any of the room types, nor to explain what
constitutes a room. Identifying and counting individual rooms is not always easy, as
spaces in the home that are clearly intended to serve different functions may be
separated from each other by any combination of partial walls, arches, columns,
cabinetry, etc., with or without various sizes of pass throughs. Indeed, removing
walls and substituting other features to achieve a more open feel while still
indicating distinct spaces within the home has become a common type of
remodeling project. In this article, the determination and classification of rooms is
left up to the builder’s interpretation.
The only type of room that builders reported was present in the typical new home
100 percent of the time is a master bedroom. Every new home also contains a
kitchen area, but this is sometimes combined with other space in a great-room
configuration, so only 93 percent reported including a kitchen as a completely
separate room. Other rooms present in over 90 percent of the homes are master
bathroom, other (than the master) bedrooms, other bathrooms, and a laundry
room.
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Table 1 shows these percentages and also provides a breakdown for homes in three
size categories, with cut-offs at 2,000 and 3,000 square feet. Not surprisingly,
some types of spaces are more common in larger homes. The share of new homes
built with separate dining rooms, separate family rooms, and walk-in pantries
increases regularly as the homes get bigger. The same is not true, however, for a
separate living room, great room or other finished space. Entry foyers are present
in over 90 percent of new homes with at least 2,000 square feet of living space, but
are slightly more common in 2,000-2,999 square foot homes than in homes with
3,000 or more square feet of space.
Size of Rooms
One home can be larger than another either because it has more rooms, or because
each of the rooms in it is larger (or, of course, a combination of the two). Table 2
shows the average size of particular rooms and spaces that are often included in
new homes. The averages are based only on cases where the room or space is
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present—so, for example, 550 square feet is the average size of a great room in
new homes that have a great room.
When it’s present, befitting its name, the great room tends to be the largest of the
individual rooms. The second and third place for the average new home are spaces
that often consist of more than one room or area—other (i.e., not master)
bedrooms and other finished space (where builders were asked to write in what
that includes).
In the average new home, other bedrooms account for 481 square feet of space,
and other finished space is 530 square feet. The most common types of other
finished spaces reported by builders were hallways, studies, bonus rooms, and
breakfast nooks. Closet space, on average, accounts for 146 square feet.
Of the spaces in Table 2 that consist of a single area, separate family rooms are
next to the great room in size, averaging 404 square feet, followed by living rooms
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(averaging 330 square feet), master bedrooms (309 square feet) and kitchens (306
square feet). The smallest individual space captured in the survey is a walk-in
pantry, with an average size of 37 square feet.
Like the previous table, Table 2 provides a breakdown for homes in three different
size classes. In almost all cases, the size of rooms (or other spaces) increases
regularly with the size of the home. The only exception is the great room—which,
when it is present, tends to be slightly larger in homes under 2,000 square feet
than in the 2,000-2,999 square foot homes.
Some apparent irregularity in the great room statistics is probably not surprising,
given the variable nature of the great room. Sometimes builders reported the same
space in the home as both a great room and a separate family room, in which case
it is counted as both in the tables shown here. But more often builders described
great rooms as some combination of family room, living room, dining room, and
kitchen. Although a family-living room combination was most common, builders
reported many different configurations, including great rooms encompassing all four
types of living spaces. Table 3 shows how often the great room contains each of
these spaces.
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Percentage & Square Footage Breakdown
Results from Table 1 (how often particular types of spaces are present in new
homes) and Table 2 (the size of the spaces, when present) are combined in Table 4
to show how space is distributed throughout a new home. To derive this
breakdown, great room square footage is allocated according to the type of area it
contains (family, living, dining, kitchen) based on the relative sizes of those areas
in homes that have them.
In addition to an average breakdown of space in all new homes, Table 4 also shows
the breakdown for a small home (based on averages for homes under 2,000 square
feet) and a large home (based on homes with at least 3,000 square feet).
While Table 2 showed the sizes of rooms when they exist, Table 4 shows allocation
of space averaged across all homes. So if a home lacks a second bathroom for
example, it will be averaged into Table 4 as a home where zero space is allocated
to other baths. As a result, the square footage numbers will be smaller in Table 4
than in Table 2, unless a particular type of area is present in every home (and, as
Table 1 has shown, that’s true only of the master bedroom).
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Bedrooms in total account for a fraction under 29 percent of the floor space
irrespective of home size. On a square footage basis, the area covered by
bedrooms increases from 468 square feet in the average small home (of about
1,600 square feet) to 1,080 square feet in the average large home (about 3,800
square feet). In smaller homes, the master bedroom takes up a greater share of
the floor space, appearing to be one area of the home builders don’t want to
sacrifice for affordability.
The percentage of bathroom space as a share of the total area is 12.3 percent on
average, more in the large home, less in the small home. Like bedrooms, the
master suite accounts for a greater share of total bathroom space in smaller
homes.
The share of space covered by the laundry room—which is present in the vast
majority of homes, irrespective their size—is 3.7 percent and varies only to a minor
extent with the size of the home. The entry foyer accounts for 3.4 percent of the
finished area on average, as well as for the large home. For the small home, the
share falls to 2.9 percent, primarily because, as Table has shown, entry foyers are
not as ubiquitous in homes under 2,000 square feet.
The share of space covered by kitchen and dining rooms declines only modestly
with house size. The 195 square foot kitchen accounts for 11.9 percent of the space
in the small home, while the 420 square foot kitchen accounts for 11.1 percent in
the large home. Similarly, the 126 square foot dining area accounts for 7.8 percent
of the space in the small home, while the 266 square foot kitchen accounts for 7.0
percent in the large one.
The family room tends to account for a little over 11 percent of the floor space in
each of the three cases: small, average, and large home. The living room, on the
other hand, accounts for nearly 12 percent of the space in the small home, but only
7.5 percent in the large one. As a result, slightly less space is devoted to the family
room than living room in the small home; but, in the large home over 50 percent
more space is devoted to family room than the living room.
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